


The Mom Around Here

by ProtoNeoRomantic



Series: Patch Works [12]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Authority Challenge, Authority Figures, Engagement, F/M, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Motherhood, Power Dynamics, Statutory Rape, Teen Pregnancy, Teenage Parents, Teenage Rebellion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-16 01:33:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1326835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProtoNeoRomantic/pseuds/ProtoNeoRomantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Joyce calls Giles in the middle of the night looking for Buffy and finds that she is in his bed, he suddenly finds himself caught in the middle of their power struggle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mom Around Here

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Who Do You Think You Are?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1235281) by [ProtoNeoRomantic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProtoNeoRomantic/pseuds/ProtoNeoRomantic). 



Buffy had to bite her tongue to keep from gasping when she heard her mother’s voice: “Mr. Giles, are you aware that my daughter has not been home tonight?” There was definite blame there.

“She hasn't?" he replied, suddenly awake, sitting up and disentangling from his young bride. Buffy sat up too, leaning her head against the receiver on his shoulder to hear what was being said. “We’ve been... fighting ghosts,” he began to explain haltingly, "I suppose she must... she must have...."

“Where is she?” Joyce demanded, cutting him off “And don’t lie to me, I’m tired of it!”

Giles sighed. What could he say? That he’d sent Buffy home and she must not have arrived? Clearly unacceptable. That she was at his home a one-thirty in the morning but not in his bed? Uncreditable. His silence was in danger of becoming a response. “Bloody hell,” he murmured. He’d already lied to this woman more than was conducive to ever gaining her trust, something he desperately needed. “Yes, alright, she’s here.”

“Giles!” Buffy interjected, shocked.

“What do you want me to say?” he countered defensively. “She’s not an idiot.”

“Whell!” said Joyce. “Thank you for that ringing vote of confidence!”

“Well... I...” Giles was somewhat at a loss as to how to proceed.

“Put Buffy on the phone!” Joyce commanded.

“I’m putting you on speaker,” he said, leaning past a now fuming, sheet-wrapped Buffy to do so.

“We were going to tell you,” Buffy said defensively before her mother could speak again.

“Buffy!” Joyce half shouted, “I want you to get dressed and go home this instant, and stay there until I get home tomorrow!”

“I don’t think so, Mom,” Buffy said defiantly.

“Perhaps you’d better do as your mother says,” Giles suggested gently, “just until we can—”

“It’ll be a cold day in hell when I need your help to tell my daughter what to do!” Joyce retorted.

“I don’t need _anyone_ to tell me what to do!” Buffy shot back at both of them. “I'm not a kid. I'm about to have a kid. Mom, Giles and I are engaged. We’re getting married.”

“Oh dear lord!” she gasped, horrified.

Buffy looked at Giles expectantly, silently demanding that he back her up. “Naturally, this isn’t how we wanted you to learn this news,” he half apologized, “but Buffy and I are very much in love, and—”

“Don’t you talk to me about _love_!” Joyce retorted bitterly. “ _I’m_ really not a child. If you think this is the way to pay for what you’ve done--.”

“Giles doesn’t need to ‘pay’ for anything,” Buffy interjected. “I love him. I’m going to marry him and have his baby. You can make all three of our lives easier or harder, but you can’t stop us.”

Giles was horrified at the way Buffy was overplaying her hand. The benefits of marrying much sooner than her eighteenth birthday were difficult to overstate even without the addition of facts peculiarly within his own knowledge. Joyce’s consent was indispensable. “I think perhaps it would be better if we all take a step back,” he said, “and discuss this face to face at a more... congenial hour.”

“There’s nothing to discuss,” said Buffy hotly.

“Buffy,” Giles argued gently, “of course there is. Your mother has the law on her side, and she’s your mother. Clearly it behooves us to show her the respect and courtesy—”

“Ha!” Joyce Scoffed. “‘Respect and courtesy’? You’re lying in bed right now with my seventeen-year-old daughter whom you’ve _impregnated_ behind my back and led me to believe was carrying the spawn of a demon! I’ve been up half the night wondering if she’s dead or alive because the both of you were too busy having _sex_ to think about the fact that it might be nice to check in and let me know one way or the other. Don’t either of you dare talk to me about ‘respect’ or ‘courtesy’!”

“Mom...!” Buffy began plaintively.

“I don’t want to hear it, Buffy,” said Joyce coolly. “We both know I can’t physically make you do anything or stop you for that matter, but I’m still your mother and I will not let you bully me into signing off on this... ‘marriage’ without so much as a ‘by-your-leave’! I’ve told you what I want you to do. If you have any ‘respect’ for me at all, get up, get dressed and go home.”

Giles prayed silently for Buffy to stop provoking the one person with the most influence over their future happiness and do as her mother said. How do you convince a bloody vampire slayer that discretion is the better part of valor, especially when facing a threat somewhat more subtle than a blow to the head? How could he express any of this in Joyce’s hearing without provoking Buffy? How could he convey that just because he wanted to open a dialog with her mother didn’t mean he had any intention of taking ‘no’ for an ultimate answer under any circumstances?

“Fine,” Buffy said tartly. “Giles, put your pants on and drive me to _my mother’s_ house.”

Giles exhaled in exasperation. “Jolly good,” he said, adding silently, ‘let’s do put as fine a point on the most objectionable aspects of the situation as possible.’

Joyce snorted and hung up.

“Well, that’s marvelous isn’t it!” he fumed. “Bloody Brilliant! ‘Nothing to discuss,’ ‘you can’t stop us,’ why not _dare_ her to call the police!”

“Wow! Way to stick up for me!” Buffy shouted back. “I feel so loved and supported! I mean, who is it you want to marry, me or her?”

“Well it’s not as though I _want_ us to need her approval,” he pointed out, “But as we are required by law to have it, I thought just for fun we might actually try not alienating the one person on Earth who can give it to us!”

“Well you’re the one who went and confessed without even discussing it with me.” Buffy pointed out, getting reciprocally exacerbated. “I was kind of just making it up as I went along from that point.”

“She knew you weren’t home... at her home that is to say,” he pointed out, correcting himself at her pointed look. “If I told her you weren’t here either, she’d have thought you were dead. Besides—”

“Or out patrolling, maybe?” Buffy interjected.

“ _Besides_ , we couldn’t have hidden the truth from her much longer. At least now we can sort things out with her and know where we stand.”

Buffy sat back down on the bed, still wrapped in her sheet and let him put his arms around her. “Well” she said, more calmly, “if she ever does give us permission, I think we’d better get married that minute before she can change her mind.”

“Agreed,” said Giles. “We can adjust the rest of our plans accordingly. I’d also like to spend as short a time as possible living with the rather awkward circumstance of her knowing that we’re still having sex in the meantime.”

“Oh we are are we?” Buffy challenged, how seriously, Giles couldn't tell.

“Well I certainly hope so!” Giles answered, “If I’m going to be living in the shadow of the gallows as it were, I want to at least enjoy myself.”

Buffy leaned back into his embrace, squeezing his hand supportively even while continuing to seem displeased with him, as if she were forbearing from the further scolding he deserved. She got to her feet with a sigh. “We’d better get going,” she said. “Ten to one Mom calls one or the other of us in the next half hour for a little heart-to-heart.”

 


End file.
